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Take-Two CEO points to a future for the BioShock series

Shaun Prescott
May 30, 2014

Page 1 of 10

When
Irrational Games closed
earlier this year many assumed it would mark the end of the BioShock series. While critically adored, 2013's BioShock Infinite did not attract the astronomical sales figures video game publishers expect nowadays. But according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, a future for the series has not been ruled out. In fact, during an address at the Cowen and Company analyst conference last week, attended by
Gamespot
, he explicitly stated that the future of the series lay in the hands of 2K Marin.

"We haven't given any colour on how you should think about [BioShock's future] yet except we do believe it's beloved. We think it's important [and] certainly something that we're focused on; something 2K Marin will be responsible for shepherding going forward.

“I think there's a lot of upside in that franchise," Zelnick continued. "It hasn't necessarily been realised yet. And the question for the future, assuming we decide to answer the question, would be 'How do you stay true to that creatively?'; 'How do you do something exciting?'; and 'How do you do expand the market?'. That would be the natural drill. We're starting from a good point on it. And certainly it's been a great piece of business for us; it's been a profitable piece of business."

Zelnick also commented on Take-Two's strongest performing IPs: Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto and Borderlands. While there's still no news on whether Rockstar will release PC editions of
Red Dead Redemption
or
Grand Theft Auto 5
, Zelnick did say that both were “permanent” franchises: evidence enough that a Red Dead Redemption sequel will appear one of these days.

He also took an opportunity to engage in one of the video game world's favourite pastimes:
sledging Duke Nukem Forever
. Noting that Take-Two's success rate is unusually high due to their careful approach to nurturing IPs, Zelnick admitted that Duke Nukem Forever was a mistake.

"We have a really high hit ratio. It's probably not realistic to believe it could be much higher than it is,” he said.

“We've had precious few flops. And at least, of the few I can think of - and I can think of a few, sadly - at least one of them was just a misguided decision on my part, which was Duke Nukem.”

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